Sci-Fi Art from my Original Stories

[Coyote]

Okay, a couple years ago I posted some stories in the fanfic section, set in my original "Empires" universe. It's a setting I've been working on since I was a kid, sorta on-and-off, and I'm considering a webcomic. I did do a graphic novel series several years ago that was fun, so I kinda have the bug to do it again.

Anyhow, here's some art from that setting. Some of this art is pretty good, some of it is really quick, sloppy and sketchy. Most of it is just me playing around and getting a "feel" for the visual aspects of the universe. It's a setting that is 100% tech, no magic, no "Force", not even any "psi" to mention.

Think of the setting like this:
Politically, sort of Babylon-5-ish, with lots of factions, and governments, all vying for the upper hand against one another.
Technologically, sort of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic level, where hyperspace travel is available and fast, but a lot of the galaxy at large still hasn't been charted out to take full advantage of it.


Anyhow, here it goes:


The "Avenger"-class combat vessel. This is as small as serious warships get in my universe: crewed attack ships. That smudge down at the bottom left is a six-foot man, thereabouts (very approximate). These "Avengers" go with anywhere from 4 to 8 crewers aboard, depending on the mission. They've got a torpedo tube and twin heavy guns facing forward in the lower hull, and two point-defense turrets (one ventral, one dorsal).


Side shot of an "Avenger".


Some Avengers in a landing bay of a ship. There is a "furry" influence present here because of the comic I did that exchanged some of the aliens for furries, but they are not canon.



A Destroyer coming to dock at a station while an excited child looks forward to seeing her daddy again.


"Command Chair"-- the Captain gives her seat to the young officer to give her a taste of what it's like. The newbie appears less than confident.

Continued...[/img]

[Coyote]

Some engineer freaks out over something he saw that makes no sense; the senior officer calmly double-checks.


Conversation about a report that was filed...


Combat Assault from graveborne assault vehicle. Yes, I know I didn't draw the damn ground. I wasn't concerned with landscape, I wanted to get the vehicle, the uniforms, and the action.


Door Gunner on one of the graveborne assault vehicles pictured above.

[Coyote]

Civilian "contractor" captain, a character for a story a friend of mine did set in my universe. "Contractors" are basically do-anything types in my universe, they can be bounty hunters or just free-agent merchants, smugglers, whatever.


"Commodore"-class light cargo ship, civilian.


Some characters I had in a story, a pair of contractors that were arguing, the girl lost the argument and there was money riding on it.


Another contractor ship I was going to use for a story idea, this was a rough sketch I did for concept art, hence the hastily-added speech balloons. While in my universe they have hyperspace travel, it takes longer than in Star Wars. In SW it seems to take a couple hours or so; in my universe it was originally going to take several days. I changed it to be about a day or so now.


An artist drawing an alien landscape that is being "planiformed" for habitation. Part of a very short story, slice-of-life thing long ago.

[Coyote]

Scene from another story I wrote some time ago.


An Infantry sergeant.


Here is a character I made for a story. I was going to bring together three girls from different backgrounds-- one was a princess/Paris Hilton type spoiled rich kid; the other from a strict religious and patriarchal society; and the third a sort of low-income juvenile delinquent type. But the whole thing is just too formulaic, so I haven't really done much with it.

This image is of Kette' Barona; I posted a short story about her going through Basic Training here some time ago in the fanfic section. She was the Paris Hilton type girl --rich family, etc.

Notice: If you look at the weapon, check out the grenade launcher. Guess what dumbass forgot to draw a trigger!? [raises hand sheepishly].


Character study for Kette' in her armor.


Another girl of Kette's species in earlier version of the soft combat uniform.


Kette' in color w/camouflage, and a gravborne assault vehicle in the background. The base color of the camouflage is supposed to be a sort of grey color, but it looks white here, so the cammo looks really bad.

[Coyote]

Of the three women whose careers I was going to follow in the military, I wasn't very happy with one of them, the girl that had been a juvenile delinquent type. I thought of a replacement for her-- this girl, Private Iskalan, who was from a world where there was universal conscription. She used all her college deferments and then ran out, and finally had to join the military against her will. She had a serious attitude problem and was very disrespectful and bitchy. She seemed much more dynamic than the one she replaced.


Iskalan with pistol and 'tude.


In the story "Ethics of Retribution" I posted in fanfics, a guy finds a semi-intelligent ship that has been left on an asteroid fro some 300 years. This is that ship. It is a squad assault corvette, about twice the size of the "Avenger" at the beginning of the thread.


The "enemy" government, the Irrykanoi Republic. This is one of their ships, a "Monitor"-class gunship that is the counter to the "Avenger" series.


"Captain Lefeyette Morrigan", the main baddie in one of my stories. Despite the preponderance of females represented by my art, only about four or five overall actually stand out, and I just tend to draw them a lot.

Oh, well, that's some of my sci-fi art. Hope you enjoyed.

[Starglider]

That's pretty cool. In terms of technical ability, it's on par with a lot of illustration I've seen in sci-fi RPG sourcebooks.

[Coyote]

That's pretty cool. In terms of technical ability, it's on par with a lot of illustration I've seen in sci-fi RPG sourcebooks.

Thanks-- that's exactly about the level I was aiming for. I consider my work "illustration" more so than "art". I do much faster work when I'm doing a comic, my "art" is not so much the attraction as my characters, dialogue, plot and-- most importantly-- the fact that I am always on time and never blow a deadline once I commit.

At least, I hope it's the dialogue, plot, and characters. Maybe I'm just fooling myself, and it's just the deadlines! After all, half-ass stuff you can depend on is sometimes better than masterpieces that never quite show up...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Are there larger capital ships on the cards?

Very nice drawings by the way.

[Zor]

Nice work so far even though some foot proportions seem a bit off. In general i get an Eighties Vibe from it.

Zor

[RIPP_n_WIPE]

First off, holy shit balls that's amazing.

Second. What's with the horse people?

[[R_H]]

Very nice. I especially like the Avenger and Monitor (looks awesome).

[FA Xerrik]

The Commodore-class looks awesome, really nicely done on the proportion and smooth curves

[Shroom Man 777]

This is all of extremely excellent quality.

[Coyote]

Thanks-- I do in fract have some capship pix, and loads of tank and other ground forces pix. I'll try to get those in as well-- maybe later today.

"Horse People!" Sweet! Usually they're called "cat people". Despite the facial structure, they're not "furries"; they're smooth-skin aliens.

The species shown so far mostly break down like this:
Humans, obvious.

Zhulescu: "Zh" sounds like the "J" in French 'jour' (as in "soup d'jure"). That's Kette' Barona's species. Gold-ish to brown skin tones, and as noted, digitigrade legs, four fingers and a small flexible "tentacle" from the wrist instead of a thumb. The ears are soft, velvety "spikes" that stick up from each side of the head.

Q'aab: "K-aahb"; tall, tend to be thin, with fairly normal human-like hands. Dry, arid hab zones on their native planet. Ears are long spikes, similar to zhulescu's but stick back instead of up. They have thin flaps of skin for heat dissipation. The Captain in "Commander's Chair" is a Q'aab. I'm considering a reworking of the Q'aab craniofacial structure to lessen the dog-like appearance. Or, perhaps, "horse like"!

Thenn: "Th-" as in 'with'. Petite but pretty stringy-tough, evolved from underground dwellers. Flat faces with slit noses, large black eyes surrounded by black 'spots'. Skin pasty white with dark spots in irregular patterns. Hooflike feet, three fingers and a sort of clawlike thumb. Small ears. The mother & child in the picture with the Destroyer coming home to dock are Thenn.

"Captain Morrigan" is a "Veliscii". 'vel-EE-skee'. They evolved from swamp dwellers and currently I'm keeping them with vestigial tails that propelled their ancestors through water, now used as a means of displaying emotion. This may change, though. The Veliscii people have a racial class system, of which Morrigan was the lowest caste, being mottle-skinned rather than a more uniform color.

I'll post more pictures of various species, and try to show some of the physiological differences. I do draw a lot of inspiration from the appearances of certain aspects of animal physiology, figuring that if it worked for natural evolution in RL, then the same should hold true for sci-fi as well.

But otherwise, thanks for all the good words.

[Havok]

Pretty damn good work. It has a very 70's RPG/Heavy Metal feel to it which I dig. Keep it up.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Wow, that's some seriously nice stuff . If you do a webcomic in the end, let us know

[Raj Ahten]

I'm impressed. I love the very detailed drawing style you use. Please post your tank and ship pics!

[Coyote]

Thank you all for the kind words of support. Now I'll bring in some "rhapsody in armor" studies.


Kette' again. I know her head is way out of proportion. I was mostly trying to get the armor right for her body form, thinking of natural points that would be covered vs. points that had to be flexible, etc.


Human in armor, running. I hate the helmet and I'm still trying to think of a design. The thigh guards are too big, I think, and would interfere with normal walking, at least it seems that way to me.

Grav Bike, 'cause all cool sci-fi universes have to have grav bikes.


A light armored personnel carrier, sorry about the poor scan.


Mounting up on a tank.

[Coyote]

Starships!! WooHoo!


Top view of the Avenger.


Side view of the Aurora-class heavy cruiser, the mainstay capship of my good guys: the Central Alliance.


A view from the nose of the Aurora-class, down the center "gun trench", past a battery of close-in defense guns. All the way in the distance you see the "wing" where the landing bays are located-- remember the Avengers in the landing bays earlier in the thread? It's one of those landing bays. The tubes on the far lower-left wing are mass drivers.


A silhouette shot of an Aurora-class cruiser passing before a sun. I never finished this because of a nasty smudge that occurred in the top of th epicture, which I have cropped out. I may try to "revive" sketch this some day.


Side view of an unnamed Destroyer class; the same type featured through the windows of the space station earlier in the thread, with the happy child.


Top view of the Destroyer.

[Coyote]

An unnamed Frigate class, top and side view.

PEOPLES:


Thenn study.


Zhulescu girl study, finally drawing things like the feet.